Financial watchdog the ~National Audit Office~ has launched a probe into whether the millions of pounds poured into the doomed Leeds Supertram project was a wise use of public money. The NAO was asked to look into the spending of £39M of taxpayer’s money on developing the tram scheme, which was scrapped by transport secretary, Alistair Darling, when he refused to fund the scheme. Leeds Northwest MP Greg Mulholland, ~Transport 2000~ member Alan Haigh, and Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Tom Brake, were among those who had written to the NAO and asked for the inquiry to be carried out. Mulholland welcomed the news. ‘There are many questions which still need answering. This investigation will, hopefully, shed more light on the whole Supertram affair, and also provide information on the decisions made. The people of Leeds deserve answers.’ He hoped the inquiry would also unearth ‘the huge spending inequalities’ between southern and northern England. The £39M was spent on designing and procurement of the scheme, and buying a 20-hectare plot south of the city for a 3,000-space park-and-ride site, as well as investigating a number of other sites. The Government called for a complete rethink on the project after costs escalated beyond £500M. But then, 12 months later in November 2005, Darling threw out the scheme, despite Metro’s protestation that it had shaved the public funding requirement to below the cap set in 2001 in present-value terms – £348M compared to the £355M ceiling. An NAO spokesman said: ‘We will be investigating, but it is too early to say how long this process will take.’ The promoters of other spiked tram schemes are likely to watch the inquiry with interest. Merseytravel spent £55M on developing its scheme, money it tried to recoup through the courts (Surveyor, 12 January 2006).